Israeli farmer housed Thai workers in chicken coop

Bangkok has urged Israel to move Thai workers away from Gaza after a worker was killed in a mortar attack. A farmer has also been fined $75,000 for housing illegal workers in a chicken coop.

Middle East

30 Ocak 2016 Cumartesi 13:01

World Bulletin / News Desk

A farmer from the Judean Lowlands Tzion Dadush along with his father has been fined $75,700 for employing migrant workers without a permit and housing them in a poultry coop reports Haaretz.

Dadush had employed 14 workers from Thailand to force-feed and slaughter geese on their farm. With no accomodation the workers were not provided with contracts or health insurance.

Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court initially fined Dadush 120,000 shekels, on appeal was sought a harsher penalty. The judges said that hey said that they had not punished Dadush to the full extent of the law as he was ill and in debt.

“Not only were the workers employed without a permit, thus damaging the public interest, but the action led to harm to the workers themselves,” they wrote. “The responsibility for housing the workers in a proper place is entirely that of the respondent, and employing them without a permit is the root of all evil,” they added.

The ruling noted that the poor working conditions but Dadush claimed the workers had preferred to live in the live in the coop because they feared being caught by the immigration police. The judges in turn ruled that the very fact that the “if they were afraid of the immigration police, this stemmed from the improper conduct of the respondent by the very fact he was employing the workers without a permit.” and that "employers must not be allowed to take advantage of the weakness of such workers, and harming such workers … is to be condemned in the strongest possible way a society allows.”

Thai Worker killed

On Thursday Thailand also appealed to Israel to shift more than 4,000 Thai workers 10 to 20 kilometers away from the Gaza Strip to ensure their safety after a Thai farm laborer was killed on Wednesday by a mortar shell fired from Gaza, AFP reported.

Narakorn Kittiyangkul, 36, was severely wounded while working in a greenhouse in a southern community near Gaza. He was rushed to hospital, but died on the way.

Kittiyangkul had been working in Israel only one month when he was killed. He leaves behind his 62-year-old father, who is blind and living with relatives in the Pua district of Nan province, according to the Bangkok Post.